Effect of Unconscious Goal Priming on Athletes’ Self-Confidence

Abstract

Self-confidence is one of the most important conditions needed for athletes to succeed. The way in which the self-confidence of athletes may be improved is an eternal topic in training and competition. This study aimed to examine whether unconscious goal priming can improve athletes’ explicit and implicit self-confidence through three experiments. Experiment 1 was aimed at exploring the effect of unconscious goal priming on athletes’ self-confidence. For the purpose of this experiment, 120 athletes were randomly divided into a priming group and a control group. Experiment 2 was aimed at examining the training effect of unconscious goal priming on athletes’ self-confidence and for the purpose of this experiment 16 rhythmic gymnastics athletes were selected as subjects. Experiment 3 was aimed at checking the replication of the training effect of unconscious goal priming on athletes’ self-confidence employing 16 judo athletes as subjects. The results indicated that unconscious goal priming improved athletes’ explicit self-confidence but not implicit self-confidence, while unconscious goal priming intervention improved both athletes’ explicit and implicit self-confidence. These results provide an economical and convenient alternative for improving athletes’ self-confidence.